Loreen’s win from last year is still, somehow, being contested by many in the Eurofandom. I like Tattoo. I think Loreen won it. And most of all, her win has had a side effect that has been little mentioned in the community – giving Ireland a swift kick up the ass.
You see, with Loreen’s win, Sweden tied Ireland as the winningest Eurovision country of all time, with seven apiece. And while Sweden has won as recently before then as 2015, Ireland last won Eurovision in 1996. I mean, even the UK has won since then!
And it’s not like Ireland has been doing well at the contest. in the past decade, they’ve only made it out of the semifinals ONCE, with Ryan O’Shaughnessy’s Together. Now, admittedly, some of their acts were robbed (AR BROOKE!) but if Ireland wants to keep its record, it needs to start doing something different.
Enter Bambie Thug:
Bambie Thug is a ouija pop star, and Doomsday Blue mixes the sound of hexing and heartache alongside the soft croons of a lullaby. It’s completely original. More importantly, it was chosen by the Irish public as part of their Eurosong competition. They saw in Bambie something that wasn’t represented by the mild, cleanly scrubbed well-packaged pop stars who are supposed to represent the best of Ireland. Bambie is packaged, sure, but in a different package every time we see them, and half the time very much not safe for work.
Let me be clear, though – Bambie Thug *is* the best of Ireland. Sure, they’re not the Rose of Tralee, but this witch represents the Ireland of today. It’s no longer a theocratic state where difference is repressed. It’s a place that’s seen as a modern, liberal European state – one with policies that are welcoming to artists (recent protests against refugees notwithstanding.) The breadth of entries in Eurosong – from Ailsha’s Go Tobann to JYellowL featuring Toshin to basically everyone but Next in Line – is a sign of a country that can do more than export traditional dancers and boy bands.
I desperately want Bambie to go to the final to delight little children and scare their parents. I want the greenroom presenters to interview them and cause the censor to have one hand hovering over the edit button. I want the thrill of live television that a Bambie Thug performance is going to bring – the thrill and the pride of a wider swatch of Ireland seeing themselves represented on that stage, whether it’s the witches or the nonbinary kids or the goths or the metalheads or simply the aunties and nans who love and cheer for their misfit families. Bambie’s success on that stage is going to be a win for them, the Ireland that’s never been to Eurovision.
My one fear is that Bambie’s performance will read as straight metal, not as something with highs and lows and as a genre mashup. I look to the way that Lord of the Lost, a band that mixed metal sounds with the world-weariness of German cabaret, was treated in the contest last year. What if voters just don’t get it? Ireland got it, yes, but what if drunk people who like goofy dudes and hot ladies doing slut drops are simply too challenged by what Bambie is bringing? In that case, it’s not the loss of the artist; it’s the loss the audience. No matter where Bambie ends up in the contest, they’ve already won for so many of us. Thank you, Bambie.
dudepoints.fun 